Then Duffy wrestled mightily yet once more, and the long way came word of trouble in the Omaha yards with the river at twenty-two feet and cutting; rising at Bismarck one foot an hour.
"Hell to pay on the Missouri, of course," growled the foreman, staring single-eyed at the inoffensive bulletin. "Well, she don't run our way; let her boil, damn her."
"Keep still," exclaimed Duffy, leaning heavily on the key. "Here's something--from--the Spider."
Only the hum of the rain and the nervous break of the sounder cut the smoke that curled from the pipes. Duffy snatched a pen and ran it across a clip, and Bucks leaning over read aloud from his shoulder:
"J.F.BUCKS.--Trainmen from Number Seventy-Five stalled west of Rapid City--track afloat in Simpson's cut--report Spider bridge out send--"
Callahan's hand closed rigidly over his pipe; Peeto sat speechless; Bucks read again at the broken message, but Hailey sprang like a man wounded and snatched the clip from his superintendent's hand.
He stared at the running words till they burnt his eyes and then, with an oath, frightful as the thunder that broke down the mountains, he dashed the clip to the floor. His eyes snapped greenish with fury and he cursed Omaha, cursed its messages and everything that came out of it. Slow at first, but bitter, then fast and faster until all the sting that poisoned his heart in his unjust discharge poured from his lips. It flooded the room like a spilling stream and no man put a word against it for they knew he stood a wronged man. Out it came--all the rage--all the heart-burning--all the bitterness--and he dropped, bent, into a chair and covered his face with his hands: only the sounder clicking iron jargon and the thunder shaking the Wickiup like a reed filled the ears about him. They watched him slowly knot his fingers and loosen them, and saw his face rise dry and hard and old out of his hands.
"Not--you're not going down there to-night?" stammered Bucks.
"Yes. Now. Right off. Peeto! Get out your crew!"
The foreman jumped for the door; Bucks hesitated barely an instant, then turning where he sat cut a telephone plug into the roundhouse; Callahan saw him act and leaning forward spoke low to Duffy. The despatcher snatching the train sheet began instantly clearing track for a bridge special.